


Closer

by SquidSoup



Category: Persona 2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 22:26:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7988359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquidSoup/pseuds/SquidSoup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The aftermath of the Taurus' temple events, thoughts about silence and friends and being cool.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closer

The smell of oil and ashes filled the abandoned factory's air. There were no windows, but hours had passed, so they didn’t need to look outside to know it was already dark. It had been a mutual agreement to find and fight demons from rumors for people around town to blow off steam from the Taurus temple, but a long day of fighting and emotional turmoil had left the party exhausted. And yet they pushed on, resolved to complete at least one request before calling it a day and going home.

Leo temple yesterday, Taurus temple today.

Heavier than the air was the silence between everyone. True, Eikichi and Maya did their best to clear it with jokes and encouraging words, but even they felt awkward. Lisa didn’t look okay at all, but she didn’t want to talk, least she started crying. Sure, she was happy that Tatsuya and Jun, her dear friends, found love with each other, she really was.  
And part of her hurt inside. Her feelings were her own, after all, and she did love Tatsuya. Even if loving someone means letting them love someone else. Still, this was not the time to talk about that, not with them. And to bring up everything else her shadow said, all her past (and not so past) dirt, was out of the question. Not now.  
Maya got fed up with the endless tension, her feet ached (she resolved to not wear heels tomorrow, something she'd later forget) and she just wanted to go home, have Urara’s homemade dinner and sleep to the tune of whatever MTV had on at the time. 

“Everyone, if we keep going around like this, we’ll be here until the year 2012” she stopped to say, stretching “I suggest that just this once, we separate in two groups, cover more terrain. At this point, I’m sure we can take on the demons even if we’re not all together.”

She heard the tired voices agreeing, also eager to leave for once. Jun stepped towards her, but before he could say anything, Maya held Lisa and Eikichi’s arms and cheerfully dragged them off, not without winking at him and mouthing “Good luck” before disappearing behind a door. Even without seeing her, everyone more or less understood her intentions in a heartbeat and complied.

Jun sighed, he understood too, and he stepped on the opposite direction with Tatsuya following behind. They didn’t feel the need to talk to each other when alone, and while usually comfortable, right now it was everything but.

Tatsuya, whose thoughts were running everywhere and nowhere at the same time, didn’t feel nearly as cool as he was talked to be. A cool guy would have given a better, longer (or shorter? He couldn’t decide) confession to the boy he had been longing after for a decade. He guessed that even the coolest person in the world would lose words when suddenly found in his situation.

He thought about Anna, somewhere in the city, defending people. Did she find Noriko and apologized? If she didn’t, he’d encourage her to do it, Noriko would forgive her, he was sure. There was something about being best friends with someone as awkward as him was that let them connect better and tell her what he thought. Or at least, he thought so, but not even he could help Anna when she disappeared and was only rarely seen at clubs. He tried to talk her at Zodiac once, weeks ago, but couldn’t say a word when he saw her eyes, devoid of the silent life that used to be in them.

“If our roles were reversed, I wouldn’t be able to help you, either” she had said before walking past him and leaving “You, I, and him too are already dead.”

Back then he didn’t know who “he” was, now Jun was walking by his side, and Tatsuya wondered if the two of them had talked. Probably not, given Jun’s lack of stability and coherence as a person at the time, but he did wonder anyways. He wondered if she’d be fine under Yukino’s newfound mentorship.

Yukino would surely talk to her about her failed relationships with her ex-girlfriend from St. Hermeline, who left her for a guy she met at work, with Fuji, who never saw Yukino as anything but a daughter of sorts and then died. Tatsuya heard about the first, saw the other die, listened to Yukino cry over both. She’d be fine, he hoped. He wanted Anna and Yukino to be fine.

Suddenly he realized he had gotten lost in thought and was in the middle of battle, slashing around with his sword like an automat. By now that was fine, he was good enough with it, but not being aware of his surroundings again was far too common in his life, he cursed under his breath every time it happened, and now was no exception.  
“Everything fine, Tatsuya?” he heard from Jun, a few steps forward and with his back at him, throwing flowers at a Satyr (he wanted to ask how that worked, yet couldn’t find the courage to do so. Persona powers? Carried over from the Joker fuckery?). He couldn’t reply, once again thinking too much and nothing at once. 

“I only have eyes for Jun” he said. It was true, but it didn’t even get to half of his feelings. He only had eyes for him, and he loved him, and he should have just rejected Lisa then and later told Jun he loved him when it was just the two of them and used the time to come up with a better way of saying “I love you” while looking cool and saying more and also say less because he really couldn’t talk sometimes and and and

And everything was cold, he shut his eyes as his body froze and heard Apollo scream, it was cold and it hurt so much. Bufudyne from a demon he didn’t see. Not the first time it happened, but it still hurt, and if he could think in that instant he’d curse himself for losing track of reality again. 

A soft, dusty feel covered the pain, and while Tatsuya was still gripping his sword in one hand and his torso with the other, Jun had already killed the demon and was handing him a second rattle drink. “Are you alright?” he asked, and Tatsuya looked at him. He looked at Jun’s concerned face, and the weight of the sun hung on his chest.

“Jun, do you like me?”  
“Huh?”

Jun felt all the luck in the world cycling in and out of him like a tornado, the bad fortune of his whole life, but the good fortune of the right there and then, of Tatsuya finally bringing it up, asking if he liked him. Part of him said to not get too ahead, for all he knew he was about to be told to fuck off, a voice (His mother? Hermes? Himself?) insisted. But he wanted to believe in Tatsuya, and in fate.

“Yes... I like you, Tatsuya.” He said, face softening and chest tightening.

“You... You do?"

“Do you like me too?”

Tatsuya blinked, trying to look cool and composed again, spectacularly failing at it, not realizing he was actually looking away from Jun. Not that Jun cared; to him Tatsuya would always be cool, always.

“I do.” Is all he could say, holding his sword tighter and smiling for the first time in days.

They stood in silence, almost laughing, and slowly getting closer to each other, dropping weapons and bags on the floor, until Jun’s head was resting on Tatsuya’s chest and his arms wrapped around his waist, while Tatsuya’s own arms are around Jun, holding him softly, firmly, tenderly.

No demons come across, maybe because of fortune sparing for once, or maybe the demons are tired, too. From afar, they can hear their friends engaging in battle. They can hear Lisa crying, unloading her feelings on the poor fiend that got in her way now of all times. Maya’s laugh resonates; and unusually; Eikichi can’t be heard, but knowing him, he must be smiling. Jun buries his head on Tatsuya’s chest even further.

“Tatsuya, you’re warm.”  
“Is that so?  
“Yeah.”

They kiss at one point, and it lasts forever and nothing. It’s the first one, not the last, but it won’t be long until that last one come. But they don’t know that, and they smile despite the strong, overpowering smell of oil and ash.

**Author's Note:**

> Update: Fixed grammar and a couple of sentences.
> 
> I haven't written anything in ages, but I'm on yet another replay of Innocent Sin and I just had to write something. I hope it's coherent and stuff. In case you wondered, Yukino's ex is Yuka.
> 
> I'm planning to write more about this game, so any review and critiques are welcomed! There's more to this that I couldn't really fit in so there's material to throw at the roof, ahaha.


End file.
